This ebook, Tai Chi and the Alexander Technique Principles of Good Body Use, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to do tai chi with ease, elegance, poise, and released joints.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
What makes the Alexander Technique teacher so extraordinarily good at working with tai chi practitioners is our ability to work outside of the box, whether the Alexander Technique teacher has ever done tai chi or not. In fact, the Alexander Technique teacher who has never done tai chi may be able to give the tai chi practitioner what he or she needs in a way that is way outside of the box. What do I mean?
When I was an aspiring concert guitarist, I went to an Alexander Technique teacher, because I was causing carpal tunnel syndrome to my left wrist, practicing the guitar hours and hours every day. Because the Alexander technique teacher I worked with was not a classical guitarist, she effortlessly got me to question everything I did on the guitar from head to toe.
It was extraordinary for me after years of playing and after many fine guitar teachers, to dismantle everything I thought was necessary to be a concert guitarist, and create my own personal guitar technique. (I do the same with my Alexander Technique clients, not letting my personal classical guitar technique override my Alexander Technique training.)
I kept what worked, let go of what didn’t work, fined tuned what almost worked, and added whole new ways of accomplishing for the first time what I was truly capable of on the guitar.
What I bring to the tai chi practitioner are the eyes of an Alexander Technique teacher. I assist the tai chi practitioner in being able to consciously use his or her whole body in a completely elegant, balanced, powerful, and coordinated way. I teach the tai chi practitioner how to move with ease without paying a physical price by collapsing or hunkering down to complete a series of movements.
How do I do this? I went through a three year training, and in my Alexander Technique training I learned to use my whole body with ease and balance in everything I do, from walking, to brushing my teeth, to playing the guitar, to teaching the Alexander Technique.
My training also taught me to look at any activity, from running to tai chi, and to spot when the person is sacrificing his or her body for the activity. What does this mean? It means when I work with the tai chi practitioner, I can clearly see when the tai chi practitioner is hunkering down paying a painful physical price to move with control and precision. I can see when the tai chi practitioner is not connected to his or her torso and legs when doing the movements. I can see when the tai chi practitioner is not balanced from head to toe when he or she moves, and because of this whole body imbalance, is using too much muscle.
What I also bring to the tai chi practitioner is that I embody whole body good use as I assist the tai chi practitioner in creating his or her personal effortless, powerful, and balanced tai chi technique. This means, even if the tai chi practitioner doesn’t know it consciously, I demonstrate to the tai chi practitioner with my own posture how to move without pain, strain, and compression. I also use verbal directions and directing hands on the tai chi practitioner’s body to communicate what is needed to create a pain-free tai chi technique.
SINCE I AM NOT SACRIFICING MY BODY AS I TEACH THE TAI CHI PRACTITIONER, EVERYTHING ABOUT MY POSTURE, WORDS, AND HANDS COMMUNICATE TO THE TAI CHI PRACTITIONER HOW TO DO THE SAME AS HE OR SHE MOVES.
An Alexander Technique teacher is extraordinarily unique in the world of postural teaching, because the Alexander Technique teacher is teaching the tai chi practitioner to do as the Alexander Technique teacher EMBODIES and says, rather than doing only as I say. Simply, if I tell you to move without locking your neck, and I tell you this with poor posture, you will have one heck of a time learning to move with a released and lengthening neck and decompressed spine.
You won’t know why doing tai chi with a free neck seems so hard, but it is because unconsciously you are receiving conflicting messages from me talking about good posture and exhibiting poor posture. A certified Alexander Technique teacher can truly say do as I do, do as I say, and do as my hands are communicating to your nervous system through my free nervous system.